Admit it, there a few games you've played that you're ashamed to say you played and probably liked! Whether there's a stigma attached to it or may be its just god awful bad, everyone has to have at least one game of shame. Without further ado, I present my list.
1. Back to the Future II & III (NES, 1990)
Reason: Terrible Game
I have to admit, my original NES collection was nothing to be proud of, I did play some of the classics like the Mario games and I enjoyed kiddy games such as Puss N' Boots: Pero's Adventure but I had a habit of wanting games based on movies that I've seen, here comes Back to the Future II & II. Back to the Future is an excellent movie franchise, I recommend everyone to at least watch the first one, if they haven’t already but this game on the other hand...
Where should I start? I think this is the worst game to ever be released for the Nintendo-that’s a good start! Seriously, this game is pure trash. All the objectives are so obscure you’ll just end up hopping in and out of atrociously designed street levels and boring mini-games. I never had fun playing this game. Every time I stuck the cartridge into the system I only played hoping by some mysterious power, I’d finally figure out how to play the game. And just to set the record, it wasn’t only because I didn’t understand how to play that made it so terrible; pick up a controller and you’ll figure it out in a few seconds. First the games graphics look hideous, you’re in the city in the beginning but the color scheme will trick your mind into thinking you’re in some damp and dirty haunted forest. You play as Marty McFly, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the on screen avatar. I know it’s because of the limitations of the system but at least they could have design Marty with the clothes we recognize! I don’t remember Marty wearing an entirely sky blue outfit. Well, he’s Caucasian, at least LJN got that much right. When controlling Marty you’ll soon realize he’s nothing more than Mario wannabe but unfortunately for him, he has none of the finesse and fine-tuning we’re accustom to from the plumber. And speaking of rip-offs, Back to the Future II & III (yes, it sucks typing it as much as reading it) has one of the lamest gallery of platforming baddies. Walking hamburgers, turtles with spiked shells (original huh?), birds that drop bouncing pellets and worst of all snails. Yeah all these things come to mind when thinking about Back to the Future. The only highlight is when the title screen comes on and you hear an 8-bit rendition of “Back in Time”. If you have never played this game in your life…I envy you.
2. Rascal (Playstation, 1998)
Reason: Insufficient Polygonal platformer
During my childhood I never had an original Playstation, I grew up as a Nintendo kid (8-Bit generation *wink*) and made sure I stayed loyal with the Nintendo 64 (although... I did stray with the Sega Game Gear over the Game Boy). With that being said I chose the N64 over the PS1 but my cousin on the other hand got a Playstation as his birthday present. His mom finally decided to buy him another video game console and it seemed she tried to buy the least threatening game on the market: RASCAL. Just looking at the cover the character is a screaming agglomeration of what kids probably perceived as 90's cool; backwards cap-CHECK, cool sunglasses-CHECK, rad, mischievous, almost Bart Simpson-like attitude and clothing style-CHECK.
Being that we only had two discs, the Rascal Game and a demo disc that came with the Playstation (it's a disc filled with preview videos and interactive demos for you kids now-a-days) we had no choice but to play with what was given to us. Long story short Rascal was a terrible game. My cousin and I took turns playing and eventually finished the game just for the sake of completion but it's a mess. From my memory alone, the character's movement was sluggish and he had a floaty inaccurate jump that caused many deaths. The camera was not your friend. His weapon of choice; a Bubble Gun which I guess was used to destroy or trap enemies. Trying to remember the story, the main character's father was kidnapped by a time lord and he has to go through different time periods to find his dad. His house was the hub world and each room had access to a different level similar to Super Mario 64. I believe I was 11 around the time we played the game and I must have had a high tolerance for playing bad games. I remember only a few good moments, when we solved a frustrating section of the game (I can't even remember which stage) and when we guessed the stage select password: House. I'm ashamed to say I spent so much time playing this game because in the end I think had more fun playing with various games in the demo then we did playing Rascal.
3. Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage (Xbox 360/ Playstation 3, 2010)
Reason: No one seems to like it but me!
Just for the record, I am a huge Fist of the North Star fan, although I did not grow up with the franchise I got whiff of it in May or June of 2010 via a "best anime theme song" YouTube countdown video. What I saw caught my eye and from the first episode I was hooked. While I was finishing the series in a matter of months, unbeknownst to me, Tecmo Koei planned on releasing Hokuto Musou (Japanese title of Ken's Rage) stateside which was odd considering Fist of the North Star has a very, very small cult following in the United States. Regardless, when I saw the trailer for the game I was hyped, but when I heard the gameplay was based on the Dynasty Warriors game engine, I cringed. I was excited to finally play a current generation FotNS game but I did not want to play a Dynasty Warriors game as those games tend to bore me. When the demo was released I downloaded it to see if it was worth buying. I liked the demo, a lot. I preordered the game to get an exclusive character and scenario and I picked up the game on day one.
While I enjoyed playing Ken's Rage it has plenty of faults. The graphics look dated, like a Xbox 360 launch game. With the exception of the anime theme song instrumental, the music is sleep-inducing, story presentation is right out from the SNES-era with static images and lots and lots of text. There are cutscenes for the main portion of the game, but the remainder is stock images that only change to vaguely reflect a change in emotion and the game has lame AI. So with all these negatives why do I like this game? Because you get to kick ass as Kenshiro! I know Dynasty Warrior games are known for their repetitive gameplay, but it’s feels good beating the snot of mindless lackeys. Kenshiro, as well as the other playable characters have multiple and unique moves which is a blast to pull off. Now, I would I recommend this game to anyone? Not really, only because I know that if I did not watch FotNS this game would not even be in my radar, I like it takes a certain appreciation of the series itself to understand and care about certain elements of the game.
4. The Little Mermaid (NES, 1991)
Reason; It’s a girls game, man!
When I was kid, I was always on the NES and at this time there was only one television set in the house, so that means the television was always being used by yours truly. My mother thought it would be a good idea to share this time-consuming hobby with my sisters so that why I was wasn’t always being television video game dictator. She first started by buying my sister The Little Mermaid for the Nintendo. Sure my sister played it, but after a couple minutes I guess she realized that gaming is not for her. She quickly dropped the game faster than Charlie Sheen at a rehabilitation center (you see I am relevant too!) and what I saw in front of me was a brand new game. Though I wanted to act like I didn’t care about it because it was game clearly aimed at girls, I couldn’t go to school the next day and say “Hey guys I just played The Little Mermaid game, it was fun!” but I decided to play it any way. It was fun, and my sister’s treasure was my guilty pleasure for 20 minutes. Eventually, we got another television and my parents bought a Sega Genesis so that she can get into gaming again. She gave up, I took over again. When will parents ever learn?
The Little Mermaid is not a terribly long game, but fun to play. I generally hate underwater levels in video games, but this is probably one of the few games (if not only) where I enjoyed it considering 95% of the game takes place underwater. Enemies are friendly-looking sea creatures such as fish, sharks, eels, octopuses and whatever else was under the sea. The game is a simple platformer and very easy to get into, no matter whether you’re a boy or a girl!
1. Back to the Future II & III (NES, 1990)
Reason: Terrible Game
I have to admit, my original NES collection was nothing to be proud of, I did play some of the classics like the Mario games and I enjoyed kiddy games such as Puss N' Boots: Pero's Adventure but I had a habit of wanting games based on movies that I've seen, here comes Back to the Future II & II. Back to the Future is an excellent movie franchise, I recommend everyone to at least watch the first one, if they haven’t already but this game on the other hand...
Where should I start? I think this is the worst game to ever be released for the Nintendo-that’s a good start! Seriously, this game is pure trash. All the objectives are so obscure you’ll just end up hopping in and out of atrociously designed street levels and boring mini-games. I never had fun playing this game. Every time I stuck the cartridge into the system I only played hoping by some mysterious power, I’d finally figure out how to play the game. And just to set the record, it wasn’t only because I didn’t understand how to play that made it so terrible; pick up a controller and you’ll figure it out in a few seconds. First the games graphics look hideous, you’re in the city in the beginning but the color scheme will trick your mind into thinking you’re in some damp and dirty haunted forest. You play as Marty McFly, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the on screen avatar. I know it’s because of the limitations of the system but at least they could have design Marty with the clothes we recognize! I don’t remember Marty wearing an entirely sky blue outfit. Well, he’s Caucasian, at least LJN got that much right. When controlling Marty you’ll soon realize he’s nothing more than Mario wannabe but unfortunately for him, he has none of the finesse and fine-tuning we’re accustom to from the plumber. And speaking of rip-offs, Back to the Future II & III (yes, it sucks typing it as much as reading it) has one of the lamest gallery of platforming baddies. Walking hamburgers, turtles with spiked shells (original huh?), birds that drop bouncing pellets and worst of all snails. Yeah all these things come to mind when thinking about Back to the Future. The only highlight is when the title screen comes on and you hear an 8-bit rendition of “Back in Time”. If you have never played this game in your life…I envy you.
2. Rascal (Playstation, 1998)
Reason: Insufficient Polygonal platformer
During my childhood I never had an original Playstation, I grew up as a Nintendo kid (8-Bit generation *wink*) and made sure I stayed loyal with the Nintendo 64 (although... I did stray with the Sega Game Gear over the Game Boy). With that being said I chose the N64 over the PS1 but my cousin on the other hand got a Playstation as his birthday present. His mom finally decided to buy him another video game console and it seemed she tried to buy the least threatening game on the market: RASCAL. Just looking at the cover the character is a screaming agglomeration of what kids probably perceived as 90's cool; backwards cap-CHECK, cool sunglasses-CHECK, rad, mischievous, almost Bart Simpson-like attitude and clothing style-CHECK.
Being that we only had two discs, the Rascal Game and a demo disc that came with the Playstation (it's a disc filled with preview videos and interactive demos for you kids now-a-days) we had no choice but to play with what was given to us. Long story short Rascal was a terrible game. My cousin and I took turns playing and eventually finished the game just for the sake of completion but it's a mess. From my memory alone, the character's movement was sluggish and he had a floaty inaccurate jump that caused many deaths. The camera was not your friend. His weapon of choice; a Bubble Gun which I guess was used to destroy or trap enemies. Trying to remember the story, the main character's father was kidnapped by a time lord and he has to go through different time periods to find his dad. His house was the hub world and each room had access to a different level similar to Super Mario 64. I believe I was 11 around the time we played the game and I must have had a high tolerance for playing bad games. I remember only a few good moments, when we solved a frustrating section of the game (I can't even remember which stage) and when we guessed the stage select password: House. I'm ashamed to say I spent so much time playing this game because in the end I think had more fun playing with various games in the demo then we did playing Rascal.
3. Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage (Xbox 360/ Playstation 3, 2010)
Reason: No one seems to like it but me!
Just for the record, I am a huge Fist of the North Star fan, although I did not grow up with the franchise I got whiff of it in May or June of 2010 via a "best anime theme song" YouTube countdown video. What I saw caught my eye and from the first episode I was hooked. While I was finishing the series in a matter of months, unbeknownst to me, Tecmo Koei planned on releasing Hokuto Musou (Japanese title of Ken's Rage) stateside which was odd considering Fist of the North Star has a very, very small cult following in the United States. Regardless, when I saw the trailer for the game I was hyped, but when I heard the gameplay was based on the Dynasty Warriors game engine, I cringed. I was excited to finally play a current generation FotNS game but I did not want to play a Dynasty Warriors game as those games tend to bore me. When the demo was released I downloaded it to see if it was worth buying. I liked the demo, a lot. I preordered the game to get an exclusive character and scenario and I picked up the game on day one.
While I enjoyed playing Ken's Rage it has plenty of faults. The graphics look dated, like a Xbox 360 launch game. With the exception of the anime theme song instrumental, the music is sleep-inducing, story presentation is right out from the SNES-era with static images and lots and lots of text. There are cutscenes for the main portion of the game, but the remainder is stock images that only change to vaguely reflect a change in emotion and the game has lame AI. So with all these negatives why do I like this game? Because you get to kick ass as Kenshiro! I know Dynasty Warrior games are known for their repetitive gameplay, but it’s feels good beating the snot of mindless lackeys. Kenshiro, as well as the other playable characters have multiple and unique moves which is a blast to pull off. Now, I would I recommend this game to anyone? Not really, only because I know that if I did not watch FotNS this game would not even be in my radar, I like it takes a certain appreciation of the series itself to understand and care about certain elements of the game.
4. The Little Mermaid (NES, 1991)
Reason; It’s a girls game, man!
When I was kid, I was always on the NES and at this time there was only one television set in the house, so that means the television was always being used by yours truly. My mother thought it would be a good idea to share this time-consuming hobby with my sisters so that why I was wasn’t always being television video game dictator. She first started by buying my sister The Little Mermaid for the Nintendo. Sure my sister played it, but after a couple minutes I guess she realized that gaming is not for her. She quickly dropped the game faster than Charlie Sheen at a rehabilitation center (you see I am relevant too!) and what I saw in front of me was a brand new game. Though I wanted to act like I didn’t care about it because it was game clearly aimed at girls, I couldn’t go to school the next day and say “Hey guys I just played The Little Mermaid game, it was fun!” but I decided to play it any way. It was fun, and my sister’s treasure was my guilty pleasure for 20 minutes. Eventually, we got another television and my parents bought a Sega Genesis so that she can get into gaming again. She gave up, I took over again. When will parents ever learn?
The Little Mermaid is not a terribly long game, but fun to play. I generally hate underwater levels in video games, but this is probably one of the few games (if not only) where I enjoyed it considering 95% of the game takes place underwater. Enemies are friendly-looking sea creatures such as fish, sharks, eels, octopuses and whatever else was under the sea. The game is a simple platformer and very easy to get into, no matter whether you’re a boy or a girl!
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